just stay strong
by thelilacfield
Summary: His entire life was one giant mistake. From his birth date to his first love, this is the story of how one man made mistakes.


Dedicated to Coffee (**coffee-stained lips**) because this was the challenge she issued me when I lost a game of 'I Never' :)

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><p><span>just stay strong<span>

His entire life was one giant mistake.

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><p>His very existence was a mistake. He'd been conceived in the middle of a war, when Lord Voldemort's power was strongest and his followers composed of the power-hungry and clinically insane. He'd been born a day before the greatest hero the Wizarding World had ever seen, just another child conceived by accident.<p>

His date of birth was a mistake. Being born as the seventh month died was not a good thing when Voldemort held power. When he was barely a year old, a little boy behind the wooden bars of his cot who couldn't even wipe the drool off his chin, his parents were captured and tortured.

His memories of that day were a mistake. Psychiatric Healers and grief counsellors and his gran and every other person who's tried to get him to open up say that no one can remember being a baby. But he always could. He could remember the worst day of his young life.

He remembered when the door had flown open and big people in masks had run in. He'd been stuck in his cot and screamed when they put ropes on his parents and a tall woman with wild dark hair had dragged them both outside. After that, they'd turned to him.

"What should we do with the child?" one of them had asked.

"Leave him," the dark woman commanded. "We'll come back later and finish the job." With that, they were gone, leaving him scared and alone in a dark house.

He'd stayed there for hours and hours, watching the door and waiting for his parents to return. He'd waited for his mother's arms around him and his father's smile, but they never came. Instead, more big people in robes had arrived and taken him away from his home. He'd cried and cried but the tall man holding him wouldn't let go.

He went to St. Mungo's briefly to be examined and lay in an uncomfortable metal cot for an hour before his gran rescued him. She took him back to a house that smelt like cats and mothballs and, just like that, it was his home.

For eight years of his life, he'd believed that he was a mistake, a blight on his family's pureblood line. A _squib_. But he'd been dropped out of that window and bounced and everyone had known he was a wizard. He wasn't a mistake, but he made plenty. His gran despaired of his clumsiness, his habit of leaving a trail of knocked-over furniture and smashed dishware behind him.

He made a thousand mistakes in his journey to Hogwarts. He'd attempted to talk to people who already acted like Slytherins, even though they hadn't yet been sorted. They'd stared coldly at him and threatened to hex him if he didn't leave. He'd tried to find an empty compartment for himself. Everywhere was full and people just shooed him out when he opened their doors. Finally, he'd let go of Trevor and watched his toad leap away and be lost in the forest of feet. The smirks on faces when he asked if they'd seen a toad made him want to curl up in a corner and die.

Yes, he made mistakes. His life was one giant mistake. But, then again, everyone made mistakes. But only he made the greatest mistake of his life. The one mistake he never told anyone about. The mistake that led to a thousand memories.

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><p>The Yule Ball was not something any man looked forward to. The very idea of having to wear dress robes and look smart enough for Professor McGonagall's liking was terrifying, let alone them having to be the ones who asked the girl. Seamus, Dean, Harry and Ron all complained about girls travelling in packs and it being impossible to ask anyone. Neville had to restrain a smug smile, because he'd been the first of the five to successfully ask a girl to attend the ball with him.<p>

It had happened in the common room, when he'd stumbled back from a late night in the library and found the room deserted. Or so he'd thought. He'd very nearly had a heart attack when someone rose from the armchair by the fire.

"Neville, what were you doing out so late?" she asked and, after his heart stopped pounding against his ribs, he recognised the red hair and freckles of Ginny.

"Why are you still sitting down here this late?" he asked. Ginny grinned and gestured vaguely to the stairs.

"Couldn't sleep," she answered. "What about you?"

"Studying in the library," he informed her. "Madam Pince threw me out."

"Are you looking forward to the Yule Ball? Do you have a date yet?"

"I think I've got the dance steps down. Not got a date but I can always go alone." Ginny gave him a strange look. He couldn't tell what she was thinking, but he'd never been the best at reading girls.

"No, Neville, you don't have to go alone," she said after a long moment of silence. "You should ask someone." Briefly the image of several very pretty girls pressed against his mind, but he pushed them away. None of them would want to go with a clumsy coward of a Gryffindor. Ginny would want to go with Harry, he knew that, but he would never ask her.

"Well, since neither of us can go with who we'd really like to, we should go together," he said. Ginny's jaw dropped. "Would you go with me? To the ball, I mean. As friends."

"Alright." The one word response made Neville's jaw drop. Was she really saying she'd go with him?

"Are you sure?" Ginny grinned at him.

"'Course I am, you idiot. Meet me down here at seven thirty on the night." Neville just nodded and went to bed with a smile on his face.

So he went to the Yule Ball with Ginny, who looked incredibly pretty with her hair pinned up and a yellow dress swirling around her. In his crow-black dress robes, he'd looked positively drab next to her. With a smile for him, she'd produced a bright yellow bow tie and neatly tied it around his neck. Taking his arm, they'd walked right past all their friends into the hall. Half an hour of chattering about Quidditch results and laughing at Ron's unfortunate outfit broke down the awkwardness and soon they took to the dance floor with other couples.

Laughing as Ginny glared at screaming girls, Neville pulled her off the dance floor as the Weird Sisters started playing and they sat down together.

"Ron and Harry don't seem to be having a very good time," Ginny said with a certain satisfaction, looking over at her brother and his best mate, the two of them slouching in chairs with the Patil twins glaring from either side.

"Hermione looks like she's having a lot of fun though," Neville remarked, watching as the laughing brunette spun under Krum's arm. "She looks really nice tonight."

"She does," Ginny agreed, looking from Hermione to Ron's sullen expression and back. "Maybe this will finally get my brother to snog her, I'm sick of his moaning."

An hour later, Ginny was stomping across the dance floor to try and stop Fred from attempting to kill people with his dancing. Neville was sitting watching the dancers, feeling very satisfied that Ron and Harry had left long ago, minus their dates. He was busy laughing at the parts of Fred and Ginny's argument he could hear when a girl he vaguely recognised as being in Slytherin staggered towards his table and fell onto the seat next to him. Her pink dress robes were ripped, her arms scratched and her hair tangled with leaves.

"You're that Longbottom guy," she said, slurring her words. "Don't look at me like that, I've only been having a bit of fun."

"You're drunk," he said distastefully. "Where's your date?" Her face darkened and she sat up straighter.

"Somewhere in the rose bushes with Millicent, the slag," she spat. "I had to escape bloody Goyle, the disgusting pig."

"So you're the Parkinson girl Hermione always moans about," he said, privately thinking that Hermione made an excellent point when she said the girl bore a strong resemblance to a pug. "You should go back to your dormitory." He looked around to find someone to escort her, thinking that Dean would probably welcome the chance, with his penchant for forbidden fruit.

"Help me, you stupid lion," she slurred, stumbling as she stood up. He stared at her for a second as she kicked off her heels and smirked at an anonymous yell of pain. "Hopefully that hit Draco."

He walked alongside her back to the Slytherin common rooms, shivering in the cold dungeons after the warmth of the great hall. She was silent and the only time they communicated was staring at each other when she stumbled and he put an arm around her to stop her falling, withdrawing as quickly as if he'd been burned.

"Make sure you go to Madam Pomfrey in the morning," he told her as they arrived at the trick wall that led to where she was meant to be. "Goodnight."

"Aren't you staying?" she asked, looking at him with something odd in her eyes. He hasn't gotten any better at knowing what girls are thinking.

"I have to get back to my date," he told her. "It was a pleasure meeting you." He walked away as quickly as he could without bursting into a run and didn't look back until he reached the end of the corridor, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw she had gone. He felt inexplicably guilty about lying to her. But, what's one little lie in the grand scheme of things? She was probably too drunk to remember anything when she woke up.

"Where'd you get to?" Ginny asked as he walked back into the Great Hall.

"Bathroom," he lied. "The music's better now, want to dance?" She smiled and took his hand.

"I'd love to."

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><p>Breakfast on the Sunday proceeding the ball was not a happy affair. Ron and Hermione weren't speaking - Hermione's eyes were puffy and rimmed with red - and Harry was trying and failing to bridge the gap. Dean and Seamus had apparently had a few glasses of stolen Firewhisky the night before, because both were complaining of pounding headaches. Ginny kept yawning after her late night and was in a foul mood, due to sleep deprivation, snapping at anyone who dared to speak to her.<p>

"Ginny, would you pass me the pumpkin juice?" Harry asked. Ginny glared at him, her hands knotted around a mug of coffee.

"Get it yourself, I'm not your house elf!" she snapped. He gave her a look of incredulity and smiled gratefully when Neville pushed the jug down the table for him.

"Neville, could you please tell Hermione that Seamus wants to know if she snogged Krum?" Ron asked, deliberately avoiding looking anywhere near Hermione. Suppressing a grin, Neville relayed the message to Hermione, who scowled.

"Well, you can tell Ronald not to be so immature and talk to me himself!" she exclaimed. Neville only just managed to cover up a laugh as a cough when Harry buried his head in his hands. Having resolved to ignore the bickering, he started to turn to speak to Ginny, but thought better of it. She was not in a mood for small talk and, anyway, she was too busy with her coffee. He didn't want to listen to Dean and Seamus groaning about their hangovers when it had been their own stupid fault for drinking.

He wondered what had happened to the Parkinson girl after he'd escorted her back to her common room. Being one of those people who were extremely fearful of gossip, he had left her standing by the trick wall and just hoped she'd be sober enough to get herself inside. Against every instinct, he looked over at the Slytherin table. No one was going to see him anyway; they were all too wrapped up in their own problems.

He saw her almost immediately, clutching her head. Obviously someone else who regretted drinking. He caught sight of Malfoy, who was entirely ignoring. He felt a twinge of anger for her and the desire to punch Malfoy right in his smug face.

He quashed the urge and turned back to his toast. She wasn't his problem anyway.

But she was. When he'd helped her, he'd made her his problem. And he didn't know at that moment how much trouble that would cause him over the years.

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><p>Everything fired up on the last day of fourth year.<p>

Everyone was caught up in equal measures of grief and relief and worry and sadness. Losing Cedric had taken its toll and no one wanted to say goodbye to the students from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons and the year was finally over and Lord Voldemort was apparently back. Neville was down by the lake, saying goodbye to the place for two months. He'd miss the castle and the grounds and the forest and he was scared. He believed that what Harry and Dumbledore said was true and that Voldemort had returned, so what did that mean for the Wizarding world?

He sensed someone approaching before he saw or heard them. Clearing their throat, the new arrival slumped onto the grass beside him. Daring to look, he saw the Parkinson girl, her hair pulled back from her face to show off dark (Slytherin) green eyes. She caught him staring and gave him such a cold gaze he switched his gaze from her to his shoes.

After five long minutes of silence, just as he was getting bored of contemplating the knots in his laces, she spoke up.

"I just came to say sorry." His head snapped up and for a moment all he could do was gape at her.

"You what?" She rolled her eyes and lifted a hand to tuck an errant strand of hair back into her bun.

"I came to apologise, Longbottom, do you need me to repeat myself _again_? I'm sorry for being so drunk at the Yule Ball and making you help me."

"I did it of my own free will, you have nothing to apologise for," he told her. As an afterthought, he added, "Out of curiosity, what did you do once I left?"

"I managed to get out of my dress robes and into bed," she said. "I woke up with a dreadful hangover and no one had any potions for it. I went to Madam Pomfrey after breakfast and we just spent the day inside, moaning every time sunlight got anywhere near us." He suppressed a grin and just turned to look out over the lake, her steady breathing and the gentle chirruping of birds the only sounds in the air.

They remained like that for a good long while, neither willing to break the sunlit silence. The lake shone and little waves crested in white broke on the grassy shore. It could have been a scene from an old painting, the blue sky and the lake and the castle behind them.

"I'm going back to the castle." Parkinson stood and left and he watched her back until it became but a spot in the distance. Perhaps they were something like almost-friendly acquaintances. The knowledge of the green eyes beneath her hair was something he felt inordinately proud of keeping a secret light inside himself.

Those eyes filled his dreams for the rest of the holidays. In the dreams, they were by the lake again, the sunlight catching her dark hair and throwing shining beams through the strands. Her green eyes were round in her face, softened as they looked at him. The dream never went further than talking together by the lake, but it still irked him. He was a Gryffindor and, if everything culminated into a battle, he would fight against Voldemort and what he stood for. She was a Slytherin and was likely to fight with Voldemort, being pureblood and supportive of everything the dark wizard stood for.

He couldn't dream of her. But sometimes he couldn't help it.

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><p>When he returned to Hogwarts, he was surprised to find that she resolutely refused to believe Voldemort was back. Surely, with parents who had previously been Death Eaters and had probably rejoined the ranks, they would know. She didn't look over the paper every morning like the entire student body of Hogwarts did, looking for familiar names in the 'Persons Missing' section. When he looked at her from his seat at the Gryffindor table, he thought she looked positively ill, pale and thin.<p>

It was a crisp morning and he was taking a walk, having woken up early, thanks to the birds, and been unable to get back to sleep. His breath sparkled on the cold air and he shoved his hands into his pockets in a vague attempt to warm them up. The weather was getting colder and he could already see the snow covering the grounds in a shining white blanket.

He reached the lake, noticing it was almost the exact spot where he'd sat with Pansy in June, when it was a warm day and the sunshine beamed down onto them. He sat down on the wet grass and watching the lake move agitatedly in the wind. The rustle of grass against material alerted him to the fact that he was not alone. Looking around, he saw Parkinson walking slowly up to him and watched in silence as she sat next to him.

"I was expecting to be alone. Why are you out so early?" He looked around and saw her attempting to look haughty. Really, all she looked was sad and small, curled up inside a too-big jumper and baggy jeans.

"The birds woke me up. What's your excuse?"

"Nightmares." That one word was enough to make him move closer and tentatively brush his fingers against her arm in what he hoped would be received as a comforting gesture.

"I'm sorry. You know, Madam Pomfrey had potions for dreamless sleep. You should go to her."

"I don't need you meddling in my life, Longbottom!" She slapped him away, her eyes flashing and her hair flying. He was hypnotised for a moment by the way she looked. A memory of a woman with wild dark hair and flashing eyes nudged at his mind, forcing him to hear her cold voice proclaiming that she would come back later to finish the job. He moved away from Parkinson, as subtly as he could, so as not to hurt her feelings. _Godric, how Hufflepuff of me_.

"I didn't mean to offend you, Parkinson." The sudden realisation of their rivalry hit him. They'd been conversing almost like friends and, according to the never-to-be-broken rules of his house, that was expressly forbidden.

"It's _Pansy_, Longbottom, not Parkinson." She narrowed her eyes at him momentarily before lying on the grass, her dark hair spread out around her head like a mane and her eyes closed.

"Well, _Pansy_," he says, drawing out the name, "for the record, it's Neville, not Longbottom." She opened her eyes and smirked up at him.

"I'm sure you'll be wanting to know what my nightmares are about, Neville, yes?" He nodded eagerly and her eyes took on a mischievous glint. "I'm not going to tell you until you show me I can trust you." Without warning, she got to her feet - very gracefully, he noted - and walked up to the edge of the water. She looked down at the ruffled waves for a moment and suddenly slipped, falling into the water with a scream that was stolen away by the wind. A plume of spray rose into the air and he stared in horror at the spot where she'd vanished under the grey water.

"You idiot," he muttered, pulling off his shoes and socks. No matter her house, he couldn't let her drown or die of hypothermia. Holding his wand tightly, he stood at the point where grass fell away to water, feeling less happy about the situation every second. Eventually, he couldn't delay it any longer. She hadn't come up. Taking a deep breath, he jumped.

The first thing that struck him was the cold. The breath he'd taken in escaped him in a wild gasp as the water bit at his flesh like a steel trap closing on his arm. His bare feet were stinging with the cold and he stood still for at least a minute, trying to get used to the cold.

He looked down but could see nothing except a few strand of weed swirling around his ankles. He filled his lungs with air and dived, lighting his wand tip to look around. He saw her almost immediately, her hair floating around her head, her eyes closed, lying in repose on the sandy bed. Only when he got closer did he see the bubble the covered her mouth and nose and a scowl contort his face. He grabbed her arm roughly and yanked her upwards.

Their heads broke the surface together, him gasping and spluttering, soaked to the skin, and her breathing easily and, having used a charm, completely dry. She just smirked at him as he struggled out, weighed down by his wet clothes, and tried to yank his socks back on.

"Why didn't you use charms?" she asked. "You could have used the bubblehead charm, a warming charm and a waterproofing charm."

"Why did you fall in deliberately?" he shouted, rounding on her. She looked shocked at his anger. "I thought you were going to drown!"

"You're a Gryffindor and Gryffindors don't worry about drowning Slytherins," she said bitterly. "If it was up to some of your housemates, they'd have the lot of us drowned and be done with it."

"I'm not like them," Neville said. "Not all Slytherins are evil and you don't deserve to die." She looked at him then, and her expression was unreadable. She pointed her wand at him and for a moment he thought she was going to jinx him. But she just waved his wand and instantly his clothes and hair were dry. In fact, they were pleasantly warm against his skin.

"Thank you for coming in after me. I know I can trust you." She took a deep breath, moving closer to him as if she expected something to come after her. "I've been having nightmares about You-Know-Who."

"Do you believe he's back?"

"Yes, but the general idea in my house is that Potter's a raving lunatic and that You-Know-Who is never coming back." He looked down at her as she moved her hand so the tips of their fingers just touched. That explained a lot.

"What happens in these nightmares?" he asked. She ducked her head and he watched a single tear squeeze its way out of the corner of her eyes and slide down her cheek.

"I'm tied up, to a chair or something, I don't know. He's there, he's got his wand out and he's talking in his horrible voice. My family and my friends are there too, all standing in a line, looking straight at me. He walks up to Blaise and he has this awful smile on his face. He waves his wand and Blaise dies. He keeps walking along the line, killing everyone and I can see it perfectly. I can see the light leave their eyes as they collapse and die. Finally, he kills my mother and turns to me. He looks me right in the eyes and just smiles. The green light comes towards me and I always wake up before it hits."

"How often do you have this nightmare?" he asked, genuinely concerned for her. She looked up at him, blinking fiercely before he noticed how wet her eyes were.

"A few times a week, maybe more. I don't really know."

"Who helps you when you wake up?"

"Daphne and Tracey are usually awake because they're both teachers-pets who want to get perfect grades. They'll get me a glass of water and calm me down and we usually have a little chat and go back to bed."

They had another of their comfortable silences, sitting side-by-side on the grass, and he noticed for the first time that they were almost holding hands. Could he consider them to be friends? She met his gaze and they just looked, brown reflected in green and vice versa.

"Are you going to kiss me or not, Longbo-Neville?" She sounded weary, but there was something behind that façade. Hope? Anticipation? Worry?

Had he really sent out the impression that he was going to kiss her? Of course he wasn't, he was going to go back up to the castle and pretend that the morning had never happened. After all, a Gryffindor and a Slytherin couldn't be together. He said as much out loud and Pansy just snorted.

"Blaise is sneaking around with that Patil girl and Tracey has had a crush on Saint Potter for a long time. Interhouse romances exist; it's just that no one shows them. So, if you're going to kiss me, get it done." He stared at her and moved a fraction of an inch closer, the scent of coffee and some expensive perfume and coconut-and-orchid and horses toying with his nostrils.

She rolled her eyes at his hesitation. "Oh, for Salazar's sake, just kiss me!" When he remained frozen, she sighed heavily, her breath tantalising on his skin and moved her head to claim his lips as her own. They tangled together, her hands clutching spasmodically at his hair and his hands on her back, pulling her ever closer. All thoughts of roaring lions and hissing snakes and house rivalries flew from their heads and it was such a cliché but it felt like there was nothing else in the world.

But then he came to his senses and he heard the drums in his head pounding out a steady beat of _wrong wrong wrong _and the faces of his housemates floating across his vision, all of them berating him, betrayal shining in their eyes.

"I can't." With those two words, he pulled away from her and ran as fast as he ever had, back up to the castle, the wind stinging his face, something else to blame the tears that pricked his eyes on. If he'd looked back, he would've seen Pansy's face fall and her emotional walls collapse as she cried unashamedly, with no one there to take her hand or put an arm around her and just hold her tight.

He made a colossal mistake that day.

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><p>Sixth year began in a haze of deaths and disappearances and Dementors. With Lord Voldemort having revealed himself, the world was dangerous. It had taken Neville an entire day of argument and an intervention from Great Uncle Algie before his gran had consented to allow him to go back to Hogwarts.<p>

To begin the year with a bang, the first thing he came across was Parvati kissing the African man from Slytherin. He tapped her lightly on the shoulder and she screamed and pulled away from the man, turned, saw him and screamed again.

"It's not what it looks like!" she shouted. Neville bit back a laugh.

"So he was just giving you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?" he asked. She blushed but the man just stood there, yawning languidly. "Don't worry, Parvati, I'm not going to hex you."

"I know I shouldn't, but I think I love him and-"

"Parvati, I don't care. Stop gabbling and introduce me to your boyfriend." She composed herself quickly, taking deep breaths and smoothing her hair.

"Neville, this is Blaise Zabini. Blaise, this is Neville Longbottom. I'll leave you two to talk, I have to go and find…Lavender!" She turned on her heel and ran down the train, leaving Neville and Blaise to stare after her and then turn back to each other.

"Straight to the bathroom," Blaise remarked. "Are you _the _Neville Longbottom?"

"And what do you mean by that?" Neville questioned. Blaise cleared his throat loudly and an awkward silence reigned.

"Pansy's always talking about you and I once heard her telling Daphne that you kissed her but then you ran away," he explained quickly. "Is it true?"

Neville took a deep breath. He'd been trying very hard to get the memory out of his head, to forget how lovely she looked and how sweet their kiss had been. She'd haunted his dreams all through the summer and he needed to get her out of his head. It wasn't healthy for a Gryffindor to obsess over a Slytherin.

"Yes. Yes, it's true." Blaise's eyes bulged in surprise and for several long minutes neither said a word.

"Well, that…um, explains a lot. She's been seriously depressed lately and it's really been getting me down, because normally she's quite a happy person, you know?" Neville nodded, though the few times he'd spoken to her one on one she'd been blind drunk, apologising awkwardly or jumping into a freezing cold lake.

"I'm sorry, that's my fault."

"Maybe you can cheer her up," Blaise said cheerfully. "I won't take you down to our

compartment, but I'll send her to meet you down by the lake tomorrow."

"Thank you." Blaise looked down at him for a minute before Parvati came rushing back. Knowing when he was not wanted, Neville strode off to find a compartment.

The Sorting and the feast flew past in a blur and, looking back, he didn't remember walking to Gryffindor Tower. He collapsed into his four-poster, yanking the curtains shut, and lay awake all night, thinking of Pansy Parkinson.

The grey light of dawn was creeping through the room when sleep finally took him, spiriting him away to a land of perfect dreams with fairytale endings. He dreamt of her green eyes and her dark hair and her soft lips and their friends all watching and applauding their relationship. He dreamt of what would never happen

And he awoke disappointed.

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><p>As Blaise had promised, Pansy was waiting for him by the lake when he wandered down there. She'd lost a terrifying amount of weight over the summer, her eyes big in her skin-and-bones face. A purple bruise stood out against the white skin stretched over her cheekbone. When she caught him looking she rubbed vigorously, as if it were just a smudge of dirt.<p>

"You look awful," he blurted out before he could stop himself. Luckily, she just laughed and moved to put a hand on his arm.

"So do you," she said. "I guess we've both been affected by the start of the war." They had another of their trademark companionable silences, sitting by each other and looking into the clears depths of the lake. The giant squid floated in circles, lazily waving its tentacles.

"My father joined the death eaters again," Pansy confided in a low voice. "Mum tried to stop him so he took her to his friends and he…they killed her!" She burst into tears. Neville's comforting instincts kicked in and he put an arm around her, conjuring a tissue.

"Don't cry, it makes me feel bad," he murmured, handing her the tissue. She blinked frantically, hurriedly mopped up her tears and composed her features. Slytherins didn't like to be seen displaying any emotion but contempt. His arm remained around her shoulders, resting as comfortably as if it had been made for that specific purpose.

"Pansy, about last year, before the holidays," he began, "when we kissed. I'm sorry I ran away. I was stupid, scared, worried about what my friends would say. I was a prat and I'm sorry if I hurt you." She looked at him, down at the hand he rested on her shoulder and for a split second she appeared to forget her icy mask. Her eyes softened and eyelids resembling the petal of some purple flower slowly lowered.

Her hair swung forward, caressing his skin more tenderly that a lover ever could and filling him with that intoxicating coffee-expensive perfume-coconut and orchid-horses scent. Her breath tickled his skin as she moved closer. He met her halfway in an incredibly sweet kiss. The feel of her soft lips on his was a new and slightly frightening sensation, but wonderful nonetheless.

She pulled away quickly, taking her soft lips and gentle caresses and beautiful scent with her. Her face was composed into her icy, contemptuous mask, but her eyes gave her away. They were big, wide, frightened as she stood up and ran away from him. He sat alone by the lake, thinking of how ironic it should be that she left him in the same way he'd left her.

He made the mistake of not following her.

* * *

><p>Almost done with seventh year, all Neville wanted was to hide away until the war was over. Luna had been taken from the train and he was trying to help Ginny manage the DA, but he was scared. He didn't want to lose anyone, let alone close friends. He looked around at bright, young faces in the corridors and imagined them deathly-pale and still, frightened expression contorting their features. He had nightmares about being clasped within the steel grip of a statue and being forced to watch every person he'd ever fractionally cared about die, the light leaving their eyes. The thought that he was having the same sort of nightmare Pansy had told him she was having two years previously didn't help.<p>

His worst nightmare featured Pansy and Bellatrix Lestrange. The wild-haired woman would be dancing about in a dark room and shooting repeated jets of red light at Pansy, who was hanging from the ceiling with a chain wrapped around her ankles. Her screams of agony were the worst he'd ever heard. Her writhing body would revolve slowly to face him, her eyes staring straight into his as tears slid down into her hair. She'd plead for him to help her, to rescue her. The worst thing was that he would just stand by when Bellatrix finally cast the fatal curse and Pansy's body fell to the ground with a thud. He never tried to help and it terrified him.

When Harry returned and the battle began, he did everything to get younger students out of the way and to Aberforth in the Hog's Head. He didn't want any children to be killed unnecessarily. He laughed at Ginny's glare when Percy frogmarched her back to the Room of Requirement. Pansy's words kept running through his head.

"_But he's there! Potter's _there_! Someone grab him!"_

He'd placed himself defensively in front of Harry with Ginny and Hermione and Ron and Luna by his side, but he'd wanted to punch Seamus when he'd muttered, "They're all the same, blatant supporters of You-Know-Who. How dare she suggest handing over Harry?" He'd very nearly rounded on the Irishman and told him that she wasn't cruel or a supporter of Voldemort, she was just scared, but he couldn't. The beginning of the final battle was not a time to reveal his love for a Slytherin.

The dead look in her eyes as she shuffled past with the rest of her house broke his heart. Her eyes met his and for a moment her face shifted to surprise and he wondered what exactly she saw. But she passed by and he was left to gather his courage for the coming fight and follow Dean and Seamus out to begin securing the bridges.

He put all those secret meetings with the DA to good use, using almost every spell they'd learnt against the various Death Eaters and Snatchers filling the castle. He passed familiar faces and saw bodies of both friends and foes lying on the ground. He couldn't pluck up the courage to look properly and identify the corpses, scared of what he might find, who he'd see dead.

He wondered what had happened to Pansy. What if she hadn't gone to the Hog's Head with everyone else? Was one of the bodies her? Would he never see her again, feel her touch or see her eyes or smell her delicious scent? He'd rather die that live without her. How could he find out? He didn't want to see the faces of dead friends.

The battle moved away, out into the grounds. He followed one of the older Weasleys outside and was immediately engaged in a duel by a skeletal Death Eater. The man fell after a particularly well-aimed stunner and Neville moved on, moving carefully through the crowds to avoid detection, hoping to find a way to finish the fight.

Extraordinarily, he made no mistakes that night.

* * *

><p>The summer sun was beating down on him as he sat outside the reconstructed ice-cream parlour. It was no longer Fortescue's, but owned by some Italian wizard with a name impossible for anyone not Italian to pronounce. He spooned deliciously cold ice-cream out of a tub as he watched people help to fix Ollivander's. The only shop on the street closed was Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. The large, colourful, eye-catching sign in the window read <em>We're away for personal reasons, but we'll be open as soon as possible. In the meantime, try our Owl Order service!<em>

His mouth set in a hard line as he thought of the funerals. After a long speech from Harry, the professors had agreed, albeit reluctantly, to hold funerals for the Death Eaters who had been killed and bury them. Fred's funeral had been among the worst to cope through without crying. He'd been the tower of strength, allowing people to cry on his shoulders and offering words of condolence.

He remembered holding Luna as she cried at Dean's funeral. Evidently they'd grown close while living together at Shell Cottage. He'd once thought she would be the girl for him, but holding her had been nothing more than a friendly gesture for him. He'd felt her desperate thinness and smelt the fresh lemon scent of her shampoo, but secretly longed to smell coconut-and-orchid and have his arms around a slightly less frighteningly thin body. He'd encouraged Luna to eat when the sombre house elves, all clad in black tea towels with the Hogwarts emblem embroidered in dark grey.

He hadn't cried for the lives lost. For some reason, he couldn't produce tears even watching his friends cry. In fact, a smile had slipped onto his face when he saw the romances between mourners. The memory of Ginny complaining about Ron and Hermione at the Yule Ball - a lifetime ago, it seemed - had had him hiding a grin when he'd seen Ron and Hermione's linked hands. Ginny and Harry, too, had been acting a little more than friendly, if his kissing her tears away had been anything to go by.

"A triple chocolate with nuts and raspberry sauce, please," a woman's voice said to the worker behind him. He heard the man muttering under his breath about being overworked and underpaid while he served the woman. A light breeze blew through the parlour and a very familiar scent drifted over him.

"Pansy?" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"It's not a crime to want an ice-cream on a hot afternoon," she retorted. "Thank you." She tipped three Galleons into the servers hand with a murmured, "Keep the change," and took the seat beside Neville, putting her feet up on the table.

"How are you?" he asked. She narrowed her eyes at him; clearly she wasn't in the mood for small talk.

"Neville, I ran away. Paid you back in kind. And I have to say the same thing you said to me." He suppressed a grin - once a Slytherin, always a Slytherin.

"What was that?" he asked innocently. She scowled and took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, Neville. I kissed you first and I shouldn't have run away. And I want you to know that I do care about you as much as I'll ever care about anyone. And, since we're out of Hogwarts and no one's watching, I thought we could try to be together."

"You forget, I'm 'The Snake Slayer'. The entire Wizarding world will be watching everything I do."

"Well, if you're trying to make excuses to not be with me, I'll just leave and stop annoying you!"

"No, I didn't mean it like that, Pansy, I just-"

"Neville, just so you know, everything I just said was a lie. You're a clumsy little Gryffindor and I want you to leave me alone. Now, I'm leaving."

He caught her arm as she made to leave, her ice-cream still clutched in her hand. He'd slain a massive snake that had turned out to be one of the objects keeping Voldemort alive, he could do anything. He was a brave Gryffindor and he could bloody well tell a woman he loved her. But actions speak louder than words.

She turned to give him a piece of her very Slytherin mind, her eyes already flashing in that angry way only women had a talent for, and he kissed her right on the open mouth. Her entire body froze, rigid for a split-second as she half-heartedly fought against him, before she relaxed against him and put her whole self into the kiss. Her intoxicating scent wafted over him in waves, every inch of her body was pressed against him, her lips moving in tandem with his and her hands touching, _caressing _every part of him she could reach.

"You are a liar," he murmured as they parted, both drawing in oxygen like they'd been without it for a year. "You do love me, or you wouldn't have kissed me like that."

"Yes, I love you, Longbottom." She smirked up at him.

"Same to you, Parkinson." A real smile spread across her face, one that fell to disappointment when she looked down and saw the melting remains of her ice-cream on the cobbled floor.

"My ice-cream! I paid good money for that!"

"I'll buy you another if you give me a kiss." She looked surprised at the almost Slytherin-esque bargaining, but quickly got over it and wore that familiar smirk with a glint in her eye.

"Deal." She closed her eyes and sighed in ecstasy as he lifted her into his arms and pressed his lips firmly to hers.

* * *

><p>"This is where you live?" she asked, her tone rather disgusted as she looked around the tiny flat with its horrible floral wallpaper and beige carpets.<p>

"It's not the mansions you're clearly used to, but it's my home," he retorted in defence. She looked at him and nodded slowly.

"It has a certain charm if you're a fan of the vintage look." She took a seat at the table in the kitchen while he hunted through the cupboards for pumpkin juice. "By vintage, I mean furniture that looks about eighth-hand and grubby carpets."

"Stop badmouthing my house," he chastised. "What happens if you're spending lots of time here?"

"You're confident," she remarked. "Eurgh, not pumpkin juice! I can't stand the stuff. If you've got any Muggle alcohol, it would be much appreciated."

"I've got plenty, I'm not a fan of Firewhisky," he confided, extracting a bottle of white wine from an overfull cupboard and pointing his wand at it to pop the cork out. "But you probably don't want to see me when I've had a little too much to drink." She smirked and put her arms around his neck.

"Try me."

Two hours later, two empty bottles of white wine was lying on the floor and Neville was, to put it politely, very drunk.

"I knew I'd want to see you drunk," Pansy, who was still surprisingly sober, remarked. "You're so drunk, I'm glad we're at your place."

"Not drunk," he mumbled. "Havin' fun."

"You are extremely drunk, Neville, and we're not even having fun yet." She peeled off her shirt and kissed him hungrily, attempting to convey a multitude of feelings in a single action. He responded with drunken fervour, wrapping her leg around his torso as she worked desperately at the buttons on his shirt.

"I _need _you," she breathed in his ear, smirking as she felt him shiver. With their close proximity, she could feel his heart beating against her chest. The world turned upside-down and back-to-front as he kissed her more passionately than she would have thought possible and, still pressed up against each other, they staggered into the bedroom.

She awoke early the next morning to the sounds of early traffic and construction that went along with Muggle London. She lifted her head from a pillow that smelt disgustingly of something cheap and Muggle and looked over at the naked figure of the man next to her. She'd made a mistake allowing Neville to bring her back and get drunk enough to have no restraint, but she didn't regret it.

"What happened?" he mumbled, sitting up and gazing around blearily. "My bloody head!" She took her wand from the pocket of her discarded jeans and placed it against his temple.

"Feel better? Remember everything?" He nodded slowly as she placed her wand on the bedside table.

"Did you really mean it when you said you loved me?" She stared at him for a moment, wondering if he was really serious. They were both naked in the same bed and he should no exactly what that meant. But he seemed deadly serious and he wanted an answer.

"Of course I meant it. I'm not a slut, I don't leap into bed with men for no reason. Did _you _mean it?"

"You should know that Gryffindors don't say things they don't mean. We're brave enough to confess our feelings."

"Look at all these things I'm finding out. If you're finished telling me the wonders of Gryffindor house, shall we eat?" He bit his lip nervously.

"I've only got cereal. If that's not enough for you, we can go out-"

"Cereal is fine. Show me where it is, because I'm hungry."

They worked and ate around each other in the kitchen and dining area like they'd been doing it for years. When they sat down together he read that day's copy of the _Prophet _and she mulled over the problem of what to wear to go home.

"If you're worrying about what to wear, Luna and Ginny have left their fair share of clothes here over the months. You can pick from their things."

She smile, a real smile, and, though Slytherins rarely show gratitude, she leaned across the table and kissed him in thanks. He moved his hand to the back of her head and held her close. His bowl fell off the table and smashed into pieces on the floor, leaving a puddle of milk and soggy cornflakes, but neither noticed.

* * *

><p>They were married three years later in a wave of disapproval, animosity, clamouring press and the biggest scandal to hit the Wizarding world for a long time. She floated up the aisle with Draco Malfoy accompanying her - her parents were both dead and she had no siblings - and stood beside him at the altar, radiant and glowing in her simple white dress and lilies in her hair.<p>

She forewent moving into her family manor and they bought a beautiful country house in an area filled with sunshine and friendly magical neighbours to create their own family manor together. She came into her own, gardening and planting vegetables and fruit bushes with her dark hair held back by a head scarf and painting pansies onto china plates to raise their family with.

After eight months of happy marriage she left him a note when she went to work informing him that she was pregnant. He cried with happiness and called up all his friends. When she got home he whirled her around the house and kissed her in every room, both of them starry-eyed over having their own baby.

He stood in St. Mungo's, keeping sentinel over her bed and growling irritably at Healers and the midwitch, consumed by hot guilt. He'd made his beloved Pansy like this, screaming out in pain, beads of sweat standing out on her skin, begging for it to end and digging her nails into his hand as she writhed with labour pains.

"Almost finished, Mrs Longbottom, just one more push," the midwitch assured her, her tone level and calm, soothing to Neville's frayed nerves. Pansy's entire body arched and she let out one last, long, agonised crown before falling back to the mattress as the ward filled with the lusty cry of a newborn baby.

"It's a girl, Mr. and Mrs Longbottom. You must be very proud."

Pansy raised her head weakly to see one of the trainee midwitch carrying a pink bundle to her. Neville's eyes filled with tears as he looked down into the surprisingly alert, curious face of his child. His _daughter_. The love he felt when he took her in his arms was stronger than anything he'd ever felt before. This was his own flesh and blood and he'd die to protect her.

"What do you want to name her?" Pansy asked, leaning against the pillow and closing her eyes. Neville thought of the stories she'd told him about her mum, a strong, sweet and beautiful woman brave enough to try and stop her husband from joining Voldemort.

"Adele," he murmured. "Adele Longbottom." The baby looked up at him with a slight unfocused blue gaze and took hold of his finger.

"She likes it!" Pansy cooed, taking her baby.

"I'm just going to tend to another patient," the midwitch said, casting a few sanitizing spells. "Congratulations once again." With a serene smile she left the room.

When she return fifteen minutes later she found all three asleep, little Adele in Pansy's arm and Neville's arm around Pansy, their lips positioned inches from each other. She sighed a little over the sweet scene, but quickly returned to work.

And if I'm not mistaken, that was not a mistake they made. That was their happy ending.

* * *

><p>I'm really sorry for any typos, but it's two in the morning and I want to get this up.<p>

Kudos to Starlit (**s t a r l i t illumination**) for providing Pansy's mother's/little NevPans baby's name :)

If you liked this enough to favourite, please don't do so without reviewing. Thank you :)


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